


Baptism of Fire

by GrumpyGhostOwl



Series: Battle of the Planets: 2163 [3]
Category: Battle of the Planets
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Humor, Things-fall-down-go-"Boom!", episode rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:33:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9475853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyGhostOwl/pseuds/GrumpyGhostOwl
Summary: Earth is attacked by what Zark describes as "a Space UFO," but what we all refer to as "the giant bowling ball." In this below-decks take on the episode, Anderson's staff get to say what we all thought when we saw it.





	1. Getting Started

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Wyldkat and Shayron for beta reading and for general technical advice. Special thanks to Shayron, materials engineer, for managing to figure out just how the giant magnet might actually have worked. Even so, I still think that Chief Anderson should avoid crumbling castles overlooking villages with windmills, should not hire assistants named Igor and ought to keep in mind that it really is very bad manners to bring a shovel to a funeral.

Two weeks.  
  
For two weeks Captain Shay Alban had been working as second-in-charge of the personal security detail of Galaxy Security’s Chief of Staff, Dr David Anderson.  
  
She was beginning to wonder if taking that call from Alberta Jones hadn’t been a mistake.  
  
Shay had been working an assignment on Lucavia, which in retrospect didn’t seem quite so bad.  
  
No, Shay decided. No, in retrospect – or any other-spect for that matter – Lucavia was bad.  
  
The ISO base where she’d been assigned to head a detail guarding some scientists working on one of Galaxy Security’s many euphemistically named ‘special projects’ was in an area of the planet where it rained at least four times a week. Sometimes it rained five times a week. Sometimes it rained six times a week. Worse still, sometimes it rained once a week _\- for seven days straight without stopping_. The location had been chosen for a secret base, Shay realised, because no sane person would ever want to go there, which made detection unlikely.  
  
At least on Earth, it was possible to style her hair without having it end up looking like a rusty dandelion half an hour later and keep a pair of leather boots the same size for more than a week at a time.  
  
There remained, however, Security Chief Anderson.  
  
And possibly five of the worst-kept not-so-secret identities in the history of modern warfare.  
  
As the incoming 2IC of one of the most important security details in the organisation, Shay’s first week had been a tightly scheduled series of orientations, introductions, meetings, travel, meetings, meetings and more meetings.  
  
Shay had managed to sign the lease on a nice little apartment in the uninspiringly named but secure and gated _Sunset Mews_ complex which catered exclusively to ISO and senior government staff. She had been allocated a space in a secure parking lot about a block from the ISO Tower. She had been lent a pool car to use until she managed to obtain a vehicle of her own. With a couple of days off looming on her schedule, Shay planned to go car shopping. Not with Alberta Jones, however. Friend she might be, but Jones knew next to nothing about cars and even less about how to choose one that had any kind of style.  
  
Major Jones was now Shay’s superior as well as her friend. From their Academy days, Shay and Alberta had level-pegged in their careers and since Shay had undertaken extra study and qualifications, she had begun to edge ahead in the seniority stakes. Then had come the fateful day at the Federation’s Embassy on Planet Riga when they’d had to evacuate under fire from a Spectran attack ship. One of the diplomats had been refusing to move and Shay had hit him to keep him from killing himself in an act of idiocy. She’d been decorated for courage under fire and demoted on the same day. Had she not hit the man (who in the privacy of her own thoughts she had designated, “Numb Nut”) she’d be in line to make Lieutenant Colonel by now. As it was, she was aware that Jones had done her a favour by arranging her recall from Lucavia.  
  
“If there’s one place where you can get your career back on a fast track, it’ll be with the Office of the Chief of Staff,” Jones had said.  
  
“So you got me back here for my sins?” Shay had quipped.  
  
Jones had turned a solemn gaze on her old friend. “Not your sins, Shay,” she’d said. “I brought you here for _his_.”  In her youth, had she put in a lot of effort, Alberta Jones might have been described as a blonde bombshell. Approaching forty and having put a lot of effort in the opposite direction, she was quietly understated and professional in her appearance. Shay Alban, on the other hand, was tall and athletic and while she was considered attractive, she preferred to be admired for her abilities rather than her looks.  
  
“Should I be afraid?” Shay had asked.  
  
“Quite possibly,” Jones said. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have asked you to take the job if I didn’t think you could handle it. Or him.”  
  
Shay recalled her orientation with her predecessor, Captain O’Malley. With his blonde hair and ready smile, Tom O’Malley looked as though he ought to be riding a surfboard, but there was a discipline in the way he held himself and on closer inspection, he wasn’t as young as Shay’s first impression had suggested, merely a youngish-looking thirty-something.  
  
“So,” Shay had ventured. “Presidential Security Detail huh?”  
  
“Dream job,” O’Malley had said, grinning. “I thought my career was going down the toilet after that incident on Vega, but here I am. I owe Al and Chief Anderson big time.”  
  
“Speaking of,” Shay ventured, “what’s he like to work with?”  
  
“A little eccentric. Does a lot of science to things. Not fun to be around if he doesn’t get his coffee. Al sums him up as ‘what you get if you cross a puppy with a minefield and promote it to the rank of General-in-Chief.’ Personally I’d have said ‘Rottweiler’ rather than puppy, but that’s just me.”  
  
“Typical protection assignment,” Shay sighed.  
  
“You know about his kids?”  
  
“I read the file,” Shay said.  
  
“Al told you anything?”  
  
“She said not to ask questions.”  
  
“Okay,” O’Malley said. “You know elephant jokes?”  
  
“Elephant jokes? I used to as a kid. Why?”  
  
“You know the difference between an elephant and a grape?”  
  
“Their colour,” Shay said automatically.  
  
“Right. What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill?”  
  
“Here come the elephants,” Shay said, frowning slightly.  
  
“What did Jane say?”  
  
“Here come the grapes,” Shay answered. “She was colour-blind. Where exactly are we going with this?”  
  
“We’re colour-blind, Shay.”  
  
Shay had shaken her head, bemused. “There’s probably a planet somewhere in the galaxy where that made sense.”  
  
“You’ll see.”  
  
Shay had not seen the elephants. Or the grapes.  
  
There had been staff meetings and of course Jones had introduced Shay to the heads and 2ICs of most the other security details based in the ISO Tower. Fortunately, Shay had always been good with names and faces but as with all new assignments, there was a lot to take in.  
  
The Chief of Galaxy Security spent quite a lot of time at Center Neptune, the secret undersea G‑Force base. The commute was claustrophobic. On the plus side, Shay didn’t have to stare at the ocean and risk seasickness during the journey. On the minus side, this was because the Multi-Modal Transport _Kestrel_ kept the viewports tightly shuttered for the duration of the trip.  
  
“What did you expect?” Jones had remarked on Shay’s first trip to Neptune. “It’s a secret base. I did warn you.”  
  
“You didn’t warn me about the fricken elephants,” Shay muttered.  
  
“Oh, that’s Tom’s little joke,” Jones said. “He does it to everyone when they start. He’s referring to the elephant in the room. The beast will become apparent in due time, but it’s way above our clearance level, so we don’t know about it.”  
  
“You’re not going to give me the story about the three blind men and the elephant are you?” Shay asked wearily.  
  
“Oh, no. It’s nothing like that. You get to see the _whole_ elephant. An elephant in five parts, in fact. A pachydermid pentalogy.”  
  
Shay made a study of the cabin ceiling. “This is your idea of hilarity, isn’t it, Al?”  
  
“I’m deadly serious about this, trust me.”  
  
  
  
Shay’s introduction to Security Chief Anderson turned out to be something of an anti-climax.  
  
Shay’s first impression of Center Neptune was of the shuttle hangar with its echoing spaces and steel-lined walls. The smell of seawater was strong in the hangar but eased as the security officers passed through a checkpoint with an air curtain. Jones and O’Malley made a couple of calls to someone named Zark and then on the strength of these bundled Shay back into the hangar and into another transport, this time a little mini-sub whose windows were not obscured. Shay gazed out at coral and brightly coloured fish as O’Malley negotiated the curves and troughs of a large reef.  
  
An undersea structure loomed ahead. It was anchored to the sea floor with stabilisers and a set of thrusters protruded out from its sides, suggesting that it could be moved if need be. Struts at the top connected it to an artificial coral cay and a hangar entrance glowed yellow against the blue of the sky which filtered down through the water.  
  
“Science Center,” Jones said. “Sister installation to Center Neptune. They’re identical twins, but Neptune’s prettier if Zark’s to be believed.”  
  
“Who’s this Zark guy anyway?” Shay asked.  
  
O’Malley grinned. “You’ll get to meet Zark,” he said. “Roll with the punches, Shay.”  
  
“This is turning out to be a real magical mystery tour, y’know?” Shay remarked. “How does a complex like this stay secret, anyway? The structures should be clearly visible from the air at this depth!”  
  
“It’s the tech,” O’Malley said. “There are transmitters on the cays which send false returns to aerial photographers and satellites. The area’s off limits to civilian traffic – you remember all the stories about nuclear weapons testing from the twentieth century damaging areas of the Pacific and making them unsafe due to radiation?”  
  
“Seriously?” Shay said.  
  
“People believe it,” O’Malley said, “and Zark subscribes to all the weird conspiracy theory channels. He’s a regular on all the far-left, far-right and far-anything boards, leaking phony information and maintaining our cover.”  
  
“Sounds like a full-time job. Doesn’t it drive him crazy?”  
  
“There’s a theory,” O’Malley said, “that this may already have happened.”  
  
“Tom,” Jones said, “you know that’s not possible.”  
  
“Would you be prepared to bet on it?” O’Malley asked.  
  
“Um… no, probably not,” Jones conceded.  
  
“Anyway,” O’Malley said, “we’re pretty safe. You’d need a small army to get to us, or possibly a giant mechanical vampire squid  [1] or something."  
  
Shay stared. "Excuse me, did you say 'vampire squid'?"  
  
"You know... those weird deep sea critters with the teeth on their tentacles?"  
  
" _Vampire squid_?"  
  
"Okay, so a real vampire squid wouldn't survive at this depth..."  
  
Jones folded her arms. "Captain O'Malley, are you suggesting we could be attacked by _undead calamari_?"  
  
O’Malley shook his head in defeat. "Just forget I said anything."  
  
Shay looked from Jones to O’Malley and back again. “And this is a normal day at the office for you guys, huh?”  
  
  
  
Like most ISO bases, Science Center was a maze of corridors, companionways and checkpoints. The three security officers made their way up several floors until they reached a large laboratory. Several lab-coated scientists were working on a series of seawater samples which had turned various shades of red.  
  
A little knot of three were debating something. The terms, “RC Factor” and “Red Mist” kept coming up.  
  
Jones cleared her throat and tapped at the door frame. “Doctor Anderson?”  
  
The tallest of the scientists, a broad-shouldered man with a mane of dark red hair glanced up. “Oh, it’s you. What is it?”  
  
“My new Second-in-Charge, sir,” Jones said. “Captain Alban.”  
  
“Oh, right. O’Malley’s replacement.” The Lab Coat – _Chief of Staff,_ Shay reminded herself – put his electronic clipboard down on the bench and wandered over. “Captain,” he said by way of greeting.  
  
“Sir!” Shay saluted.  
  
“At ease,” Anderson said, seemingly uncomfortable with the gesture. “Do you drink coffee, Captain?”  
  
Shay had been warned about this, too. “Yes, sir. Make a mean cup as well, sir.”  
  
“Good. Good…” Anderson glanced back at the seawater tanks. “I need to get back to this. Major Jones, why don’t you give Captain Alban the grand tour?”  
  
“It’s on our list of things to do, sir,” Jones said.  
  
“Fine…” Anderson’s focus had apparently already wandered off. “Dismissed.” Anderson followed his errant focus back into the lab and resumed his work.  
  
Shay waited until the little group had walked a good distance down the companionway before speaking. “ _That’s_ our Chief of Staff? A Lab Coat with a coffee addiction and the attention span of a goldfish?”  
  
Jones chuckled. “That’s our Chief of Staff, but don’t dismiss him out of hand just yet.”  
  
“You’re not going to tell me he has hidden depths are you? Because I may puke.”  
  
“Oh, they’re not hidden,” Jones said airily. “He’s just in Lab Coat mode. You wait until he remembers he’s a Suit.”  
  
Shay cast her eyes heavenward but found only the ceiling. “How do you keep from going crazy?”  
  
“I stopped fighting it ages ago,” Jones said.  
  
  
  
At the end of their shift, Shay and Jones relaxed in the staff room over coffee and tea.  
  
“Did you really tell O’Malley that Anderson’s like a cross between a puppy and a minefield?” Shay wanted to know.  
  
“I might have said something to that effect,” Jones said with a sly smile.  
  
“Because…?”  
  
“The expression on Tom’s face at the time was priceless.”  
  
“You want to come clean and tell me what Anderson’s really like?” Shay asked.  
  
“He’s a gifted scientist and a formidable individual. He’s achieved things in one lifetime that most people couldn’t manage in three. He’s brilliantly sarcastic, politically savvy and well-informed. His field experience was relatively short, just a few years, mostly working with Marshall Hawking before Hawking was killed in that crash, then Doctor Anderson became Chief Conway’s right hand man. He’s kept himself physically very fit and up to date with his combat training. Fortunately, he tends to exercise in the gym rather than by running so you and I are both faster than he is. _Un_ fortunately, he thinks he’s invincible and doesn’t need security to do anything other than keep him well supplied with coffee, which I make a point of not doing, by the way.”  
  
“How do you avoid it?” Shay asked.  
  
“Do you remember that time back at the Academy where we had that stupid competition to see who could rig the coffee machine to make the most disgusting, undrinkable cup of coffee?”  
  
“Yeah. I won that. Free drinks for a week.”  
  
“You showed me how you did it,” Jones said, “and I never forgot, you know, not to this very day.”  
  
“You didn’t!”  
  
“I _do_.”  
  
“Seriously?”  
  
“Deadly.”  
  
“What are you going to do if he ever finds out?” Shay asked.  
  
“Cross that bridge when I come to it,” Jones said.  
  
  
  
Security Chief Anderson had turned out to be an odd mix of Lab Coat and Suit. It was clear that science was his first love but he was also clearly very capable as a Chief of Staff as long as he wasn’t being distracted by a machine that went “ _Ping_!”  [2]  
  
Of the famed and fabled G-Force, there was no sign.  
  
Shay was aware that she would see them eventually but as the first week eased into the second, her assignment seemed to be a fairly standard, ‘protect the bureaucrat,’ kind of thing. She’d done this for years and fell into the rhythm of the days and nights without difficulty.

 

 

  1. Vampire Squid are an actual thing. Read about them here <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_squid>
  2. To be fair, they don’t _all_ go, “ _Ping!_ ” Some of them go, “ _Pong!_ ”




	2. The Elephant in the Room

It was O’Malley’s last day and he’d been spending his final shift with Shay and Jones at Science Center where Anderson was seemingly immersed in his ‘Red Mist’ project. 7-Zark-7 had been asking why the new 2IC hadn’t been up to visit him yet and Jones was running out of excuses. Finally, a visit to Nerve Center was organised for that afternoon. It had been a quiet morning and Shay had been put to work double-checking the rosters and staff time sheets when her palm unit began to sound with an emergency tone.  
  
Shay activated her holo display. The image of a dome-topped Quanto Tobor AI unit appeared.  
  
_“Attention!”_ the cybernaut said. _“This is 7-Zark-7. A space UFO has landed in Center City. I’ve just had time to issue emergency evacuation orders. Civilian casualties are presently nil, but we’re going to need G-Force for this one!”  
  
_ Anderson’s voice responded. _“Call them in. Have them report to Center Neptune. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”_  
  
Shay deactivated the display, saved her work and high-tailed it to Anderson’s lab where Jones and O’Malley were on duty.  
  
Shay caught up with Anderson and his guards as they headed for the hangar bay. Jones was speaking rapidly into her palm unit organising to have the mini-sub prepared and ready to take them back to Center Neptune with all speed.  
  
  
  
The journey back to Center Neptune was undertaken at maximum velocity with O’Malley at the helm of the mini-sub while Anderson studied reports and video of an incident by way of his holo display. He made and took calls to and from the other ISO Chiefs of Staff, discussing the disposition of resources and response teams.  
  
Jones was also reviewing vision.  
  
Shay stared. “Am I hallucinating?”  
  
“I’m afraid not,” Jones said as Shay stared at footage of a giant black spherical ship rolling through the streets of Center City.  
  
“Okay,” Shay decided, “that’s officially the weirdest thing I’ve seen while stone cold sober.”  
  
“You weren’t here for the giant ant,” O’Malley pointed out with a quick glance over his shoulder.  
  
  
  
Shay followed her colleagues and her Chief of Staff as they strode through Center Neptune to the Operations Center. O’Malley disappeared for a few minutes to return with a large mug of coffee which was handed over to Security Chief Anderson without comment.  
  
The big screens were full of the large black ship, seemingly untouched by anything that the ISO could throw at it.  
  
Air Marshall Tobias Lynch appeared on one of the displays. _“That damned thing’s taken down four squadrons of UCAVs! We might as well be throwing insults at it! When can we have G-Force?”_  
  
“You can have G-Force when I can brief them with an analysis, Toby,” Anderson growled. “I’m not sending my team in blind!”  
  
_“So far our analysis is that it’s destroying every asset we send up against it,”_ Lynch said.  
  
“And you want me to send _my people_ up against it?” Anderson challenged.  
  
Lynch took a breath. _“You’re right. Just keep me in the loop, will you?”_  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Anderson shut down the connection and brought up another series of screens. A complicated series of dynamic charts displayed a range of energetic and spectrographic scans of the enemy ship. Shay stared at the screens from her spot out of the way in one corner. She recognised them for what they were but didn’t have time to comprehend them at the rate Anderson was scrolling through them.  
  
“Is he actually making sense out of those readouts at that speed?” she asked through the corner of her mouth.  
  
“Yes,” Jones murmured back. “All those stories you hear about him being a genius?”  
  
“Let me guess: they’re all true?”  
  
“All true.”  
  
“So why did G-Sec take a card carrying genius Lab Coat and turn him into a Suit? Seems to me someone like this is wasted on the Executive floor.”  
  
“It was all Chief Conway’s idea apparently,” Jones said.  
  
“Conway, huh? So… were the stories about _him_ true?”  
  
“It would seem,” Jones said, “that at least some of them were.”  
  
“We’re in a lot of trouble,” Shay concluded.  
  
  
  
The security staff watched, unneeded and unheeded, until the enemy ship broke off the attack and disappeared into the ocean.  
  
It also seemed to have disappeared from surveillance systems as a series of frantic calls and dead screens sent the operations room into a state of organised chaos.  
  
A screen lit up with the image of the Quanto Tobor AI unit which had called to announce the initial alert. _“Chief Anderson, the_ Phoenix _is docking at Center Neptune,”_ the robot announced.  
  
Anderson turned and left the operations room without a word. The security staff followed. It was a short distance to the Security Chief’s office area and Jones nodded to Shay. “Better check that there’s plenty of coffee.”  
  
Several fragrant minutes later, Shay ventured in to Anderson’s office. “Coffee, sir,” she announced.  
  
“Thanks.” Anderson said automatically. He held out one hand for the mug, focussed on the readout from his computer. Shay passed it over, handle first.  
  
Anderson said nothing further so Shay turned and walked out to where Jones and O’Malley were on station. She looked up at the sound of rapid footfalls. “Evasive action,” Jones said, and drew Shay to one side. O’Malley was already getting out of the way.  
  
Shay didn’t have time to arrange a look of disinterest on her face as G-Force charged down the companionway and burst through the door into Anderson’s office. She had an impression of bright colours, winged capes and helmets, then the door shut and she closed her mouth.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Jones said. “You’ll get used to it.”  
  
  
  
The departure of G-Force was nothing like their entrance. They shuffled out of Anderson’s office and trudged away in apparent low spirits. Shay did her best not to stare.  
  
A moment later, Anderson appeared in the doorway and watched the departing backs of the Federation’s premier strike team. He withdrew back into his office and shut the door behind him.  
  
“I don’t like this,” Jones muttered.  
  
“They must’ve been told they’re not up to bat,” O’Malley suggested.  
  
Jones had her palm unit open and was speaking in to it. “Keep me informed of all movements in or out of Center Neptune, please, Zark?”  
  
Shay processed the information to hand. “You think _G-Force_ will disobey orders?”  
  
Jones smiled sadly. “They’re so very young, Shay.”  
  
Shay suddenly realised that one member of G-Force had been particularly short, one quite stout, one a slender female and the other two strapping young men. Anderson’s file – which she had reviewed on the way back to Earth – had provided details of his five foster children: one young boy, one rather stout youth, one slender girl and two strapping young men.  
  
“The elephant in the room,” Shay breathed. “How in the galaxy do they keep that a secret?”  
  
“What elephant was that?” Jones asked blandly.  
  
“I’m going to need a stiff drink when we get off duty,” Shay said.  
  
“Funny how a lot of people say that when they start with this outfit,” O’Malley observed.  
  
“Really?” Jones said. “I hadn’t noticed.”  
  
O’Malley remained on duty outside Anderson’s office while Jones and Shay adjourned to the security office to review the squad rosters and draw up contingency plans in case they wound up in the field. At one point Jones had taken a call indicating that the G-Force Commander had departed – with Chief Anderson’s knowledge and consent – to the mainland to ‘consider strategy.’  
  
“He’s sulking?” Shay inferred, recognising the euphemism for what it was.  
  
“Command’s a heavy burden for young shoulders to bear,” Jones said. “We couldn’t have handled it at their ages.”  
  
“What are you, den mother?” Shay said with a snort.  
  
  
  
Hours dragged by and Shay had been taking a coffee break when O’Malley called her over to one of Center Neptune’s large viewing windows. “Check it out,” he told her, pointing.  
  
Below them, yellow light was spilling out into the ocean and a large red prow emerged.  
  
“The _Phoenix_?” Shay inferred.  
  
“The _Phoenix_ ,” O’Malley said. “Isn’t she something?”  
  
Shay stared in awe as the bulk of the G-Force command ship slowly became visible then began to rise up past the window, headed for the surface.  
  
“You’re going to miss this, aren’t you, Tom?” Shay said.  
  
“Yeah,” O’Malley said. “I am.” They watched the _Phoenix_ disappear as she climbed out of sight. “Shay?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“You know Al isn’t quite as bullet-proof as she seems, right?”  
  
“Tom, I’ve known her since we were teenagers. Of course I know she isn’t bullet-proof.”  
  
“Anderson drives her crazy. And she kind of drives him crazy back. Just… don’t let the crazy get too crazy, okay?”  
  
“Do you write cryptic crosswords for the _Galactic Review_ in your spare time by any chance?” Shay asked.  
  
“Hey,” O’Malley said, “the elephant jokes made sense eventually, didn’t they?”  
  
  
  
Shay and O’Malley returned to the Operations room but didn’t go inside. After a while, Jones emerged to ask O’Malley to go for coffee.  
  
“How’s the mission going?” Shay asked.  
  
“It isn’t,” Jones said. “They’re waiting to engage and he’s pacing around the room like a tiger with a toothache.”  
  
Shay considered this for a moment. “What happens if you touch the sore tooth?”  
  
“You get roared at,” Jones said. “Nothing more, but it’s not very pleasant. When G-Force are on a mission he gets touchy.”  
  
“I’m not surprised,” Shay said, “given that they’re… um… an elephant.”  
  
“You’re really going to have to let that metaphor go at some point,” Jones said.  
  
  
  
It turned out that G-Force didn’t engage the enemy but had brought back a body of data to analyse. Anderson announced his intention to return to ISO Headquarters and his security detail prepared to go with him.  
  
Shortly before departure, Jones received a text message on her palm unit and gave Shay a rueful look. “Our presence has been requested at Nerve Center,” she announced. “Come along.”  
  
“You don’t need me for this, do you?” O’Malley asked.  
  
“It’s all right, Tom,” Jones said. “You stay with Chief Anderson.”  
  
Shay was led through a series of checkpoints with the ‘Special’ clearance requirement and then into a tiny elevator barely large enough for four people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder.  
  
The lift car stopped at the top of the Neptune complex and Jones stepped out ahead.  She stared into a retina scanner for a moment, beckoned to Shay to do the same, then swiped her pass card through a reader which triggered the appearance of a keypad. Jones entered a code, pressed her thumb to the biometric reader and a hatchway unlocked. “This way,” Jones said. Both officers stepped through the hatch into what looked like a child’s play area. “Zark?” Jones called. “Are you in here?”  
  
A squat cylindrical robot with a domed head rolled out from behind some kind of couch. It was followed by a mechanical dog which carried a wrench in its mouth.  
  
“Hello, Major Jones!” the robot exclaimed. “I was just retrieving 1-Rover-1’s wrench. He keeps getting it stuck behind the service panels. I tell him it’s a silly thing to do, but he keeps on doing it. Is this your new second-in-command?”  
  
“Yes,” Jones said. “This is Captain Alban. Shay, I’d like you to meet 7-Zark-7, Galaxy Security’s most powerful Artificial Intelligence entity and cybernetic coordinator for G-Force.”  
  
“Hello!” the robot said again. “I’m delighted to meet you. I’m glad Chief Anderson has such dedicated officers on staff to keep him safe. He’s very brave, you know, but sometimes he can be a little reckless. You’ll have your work cut out for you, but I don’t doubt for a minute that you’ll do splendidly!”  
  
Shay opened her mouth and closed it again. “You’re Zark.”  
  
“Yes of course,” the robot said.  
  
Shay looked around the playroom and shuddered. “And you… you… do… what exactly?”  
  
“I keep a constant watch on our galaxy for alien threats from the evil Planet Spectra and its sinister allies!” the robot said proudly.  
  
“Constant as in… you’re doing it… right now?”  
  
“Well,” the robot chuckled. “At the moment my sensors are in peripheral mode as I’m here talking with you. I always like to meet new staff if I can. It gets so lonely up here.”  
  
“It’s always nice to see you, Zark,” Jones said, “but we have to catch a shuttle back to Headquarters so we can’t stay.”  
  
“I know you’re busy, Major, and I appreciate you taking the time to visit,” the robot said, “the reason I asked you here was that I was hoping you might give something to Keyop for me.”  
  
“Of course,” Jones said. She bent down to the robot’s level as he produced a tiny horseshoe magnet and a ball bearing. “A toy?”  
  
“Yes, but an educational one!” the robot said. “The G-Force team are so demoralised at the moment. I thought I might give Keyop something to cheer him up.”  
  
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Jones said. “I’ll see that he gets it. Must rush! Don’t want to be late for the shuttle and throw Chief Anderson’s schedule out, now, do we?”  
  
“Of course not. Thank you so much for coming to see me,” Zark said. “It was lovely to meet you, Shay. Don’t be a stranger!” The robot waved cheerfully as Jones led Shay out of the room.  
  
Shay waited for the elevator doors to close before opening her mouth to speak, but Jones shook her head. “Did you know that Zark can monitor just about anything, anywhere?” Jones said conversationally. “He provides security surveillance for all senior ISO officials, including Chief Anderson and by extension, us. All those urban legends about Galaxy Security’s all-seeing eye come back to Zark.”  
  
Shay muttered something under her breath.  
  
“Language,” Jones murmured.  
  
  
  
On the journey back to the mainland, Shay reviewed the vision of the enemy attack on her palm unit. It was still as bizarre as it had been the first time.  
  
Anderson was working irritably at something on the holo display of his palm unit. When Shay glanced in the Security Chief’s direction she observed that it appeared to be a text file of some kind.  
  
“I’m fairly certain you’re not allowed to say that about people’s mothers, sir,” Jones said. “Especially when you’re wearing the official hat.”  
  
“Don’t talk to me about the hat,” Anderson growled.  
  
“Figure of speech sir,” Jones soothed.  
  
“Here.” Anderson angled his palm unit towards Jones, who mirrored the action with her own device. Both units issued a soft beep to indicate that a data transfer had been made. “Make it acceptable for the fine ladies and gentlemen of the fourth estate. You might as well put that liaison and protocol qualification to use.”  
  
“Just as you say, sir,” Jones said and set to work.  
  
By the time Shay was starting to wonder how far they’d travelled in the tightly shuttered transport, Jones had handed over what turned out to be a much-modified speech for a press conference and Anderson was practising it with ill grace while Jones coached him along.  
  
“You took out the word ‘idiot.’ I _like_ the word, ‘idiot,’” Anderson argued. “It’s so accurate.”  
  
“I know, sir,” Jones said. “Carry on regardless.”  
  
Anderson paced up and down the aisle a few times, practising his speech, apparently blowing off steam as he did so. By the time the thrum of the engines changed to suggest they were about to dock, he seemed to have lost the anger and the petulance and had taken on the appearance of an urbane and competent Chief of Staff.  
  
Shay closed down her palm unit and prepared to escort Anderson off the shuttle.  
  
  
  
The press conference was as bad as Shay had feared it would be.  
  
Reporters were demanding to know why G-Force hadn’t engaged the mysterious black sphere while Anderson kept his cool and presented himself as the voice of sweet reason. In the privacy of her own thoughts, Shay awarded the man points for not shooting anyone in response to some of the more outrageous questions.  
  
  
  
Back at headquarters, there were five slightly scruffy youngsters waiting in Anderson’s office. Shay could pick the girl as G-3 (obviously) the boy as G-4 and the heavily-built youth as G-5. It was harder to decide which of the two tall young men was G-1 and which was G-2 but if the numbers on the t-shirts were anything to go by, the dark haired one was probably the Commander and the taller one with the slightly cynical look was most likely his second.   
  
Jones motioned the boy over and gave him the magnet with the explanation that it was a gift from Zark. The boy grinned and stammered his thanks with an odd, chirping speech defect. He looked over at Shay and tilted his head to one side in a birdlike gesture. “You… new?” he asked.  
  
“Yes,” Shay said. She caught a warning twitch of Jones’ head and added, “Sir.”  
  
The boy looked back in to Anderson’s office. “Gotta… go,” he said, and waved as he went back inside. Jones pulled the door shut after him.  
  
“What’s with the kid?” Shay asked.  
  
“Bad speech impediment,” Jones said. “Apparently he can have it fixed next year some time. Until then you just have to be patient with him.”  
  
Two uniformed security officers took over the watch and Jones led the way back to her office. Tom O’Malley was clearing his things out of the tiny cubicle that would now be Shay’s.  
  
“Good luck, Tom,” Shay said.  
  
“Thanks,” O’Malley said with a smile. “It’s kind of a shame I won’t be able to see this crazy flying bowling ball thing through.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Shay said, “I just hope we don’t have to see it up close and in person. The squad’s tight and disciplined but they haven’t exactly been tested under fire.”  
  
“True,” O’Malley said. “Came close with that darned ant, though. Thought we were going to have to defend the traffic tower at the Breslin Tunnel with a rocket launcher and balls.”  
  
“Oh? Whose?  
  
“Anderson’s,” Tom said. “And Al’s.”  



	3. All we Need Now is a Thunderstorm

The next morning seemed relatively uneventful. The news had been full of Chief Anderson’s press conference repeated _ad nauseum_ but the Galaxy Security Executive Suite on the 100 th floor of the ISO Tower seemed quiet.   
  
It was late morning when Shay and her Commanding Officer had adjourned to the staff kitchen to make coffee and tea respectively when Shay heard the sound of running footsteps. Both women hurried out into the lobby to see what was going on.  
  
The young man Shay recalled from Anderson’s file as Mark Hawking ran up to Gunnery Sergeant McAllister’s desk and declared, “I’ve got it! Gunny, I’ve got it!” The pretty young woman and the boy Shay recognised from the previous day followed at a more sedate pace. Shay had reviewed Anderson’s personal information again overnight and put names to the faces: Princess and Keyop.  
  
“It’s Mark,” Jones observed. “Wonder what he’s got?”  
  
“A whole new take on crazy, possibly?” Shay suggested. She watched the three young people disappear into the Chief’s office. “I notice they don’t wear ID tags.”  
  
“What else do you notice?” Jones asked.  
  
“Bracelets,” Shay said.  
  
“Precisely. If you ever see one of the young people up here without a bracelet, detain them. They don’t move without those bracelets.”  
  
“Some kind of tech, no doubt.”  
  
“No doubt,” Jones said.  
  
“And above our clearance level.”  
  
“We’d need a ladder.”  
  
Gunnery Sergeant McAllister cleared Chief Anderson’s schedule for the afternoon. The information was updated on Shay’s palm unit with the rest of the day blocked out for G-Force. Then McAllister cleared Chief Anderson’s schedule for the next day as well.  
  
Shay observed Dr Roland Galbraith the Deputy Chief of Galaxy Security joining the meeting in Anderson’s office but wasn’t privy to anything that went on inside the inner sanctum.  
  
After a while, Deputy Chief Galbraith left the office and Shay noticed the rest of the Executive Directors filing in to the large conference room. After about twenty minutes, they all filed out again and the background noise levels rose as administrative staff reworked schedules and swapped appointments around to share the workload that Anderson had apparently shed.  
  
Several times, internal mail couriers ran from the elevator cars to deliver what appeared to be blueprints.  
  
“The big plan printer’s downstairs in sub-basement five, near the server room,” Gunnery Sergeant McAllister explained.  
  
“We have a server room in a sub-basement?” Shay queried. “In Center City, earthquake capital of the continent?”  
  
“Specially engineered to flex and stabilise within the superstructure, ma’am,” McAllister explained. “You could drop a bomb on it and still be able to play solitaire. Our server room’s probably one of the safest places on Earth.”  
  
The administrative staff went home at sixteen thirty. Gunnery Sergeant McAllister made one last cup of coffee for Chief Anderson, checked that there was nothing else the Chief needed him for then excused himself and left the office.  
  
Shortly afterward, the three youngsters emerged.  
  
The boy bounced over to the security officers. “Going… to kick… Spectra’s butt!” he declared, brandishing his toy magnet.  
  
“I look forward to you doing so, sir,” Jones said.  
  
The dark-haired young man stopped in front of Shay. “Haven’t seen you around here before,” he said.  
  
Shay saluted and the young man returned it with the familiarity of one who has been trained to do so. “Captain Shay Alban, sir. O’Malley’s replacement.”  
  
“I see,” the young man said. “Well, hope you like it around here. It can get a little hectic.”  
  
“And it’s usually our fault,” the young woman added. “I’m Princess. This is Mark and Keyop.”  
  
“Ma’am. Sir,” Shay said.  
  
“We’d better go,” Mark said. “We need to rest up.”  
  
“Tell… others!” the boy piped.  
  
“You bet,” Princess agreed. “They’re going to want to hear this.”  
  
When Mark, Princess and Keyop had taken the elevator, Shay shook her head. “I can’t believe how young they are!”  
  
“I know,” Jones said. “Except that we don’t know.”  
  
“Of course we don’t,” Shay agreed. “Damnedest elephant I ever did see.”  
  
“Why don’t you head home?” Jones said. “Your shift finished an hour and half ago. I’ll call you if I need you.”  
  
  
  
When the call came it was not particularly welcome.  
  
As a protective services officer, Shay had trained herself to wake up instantly.  
  
“Do you know what time it is?” she demanded. The readout on the clock said 04:00 and Shay was in no doubt that Jones knew this, but she felt better for saying it anyway.  
  
“Bloody stupid o’clock, by my watch,” Jones retorted. “Grab your go-bag and get your arse to ISO Powell. We’re boarding a heavy transport for wheels up in ninety minutes.”  
  
Where ISO Seahorse on the bay dealt with marine and limited air traffic, ISO Powell on the other side of Center City was on the edge of the urban sprawl and consisted of long runways, heavy air transport, army barracks and a launch facility for military star ships. It also had a sprawling residential area where ISO personnel could rent anything from an apartment to a bungalow.  Jones rented a modest house at Powell, putting up with the commute so that she could have a garden. Shay would rather have had root canal work than live on base so far from the city centre, but she’d been given an orientation tour of the base during her first week against the day when she’d need to know her way around it.  
  
Shay found Jones standing next to Security Chief Anderson on the hardstand, watching Army personnel load up a pair of QTL Heavy Airborne Transports.  
  
“This looks like a plan,” Shay suggested.  
  
“It will be if we can race against the clock and win,” Anderson said.  
  
Another four squad members arrived, as did a contingent of additional security officers and trucks continued to drop off materials and equipment for Anderson’s plan.  
  
Eventually the big rear hatches closed and ground crew signalled to Anderson that personnel could board. Five more personnel – two from the Space Patrol and three from the Army – reported in.  
  
“Where the hell are the rest of my engineers?” Anderson demanded.  
  
“We’re all they could scrape up at short notice, General,” the Army Major explained. “We have another six techs scheduled to take a later flight, sir.”  
  
“It’s _Chief_ ,” Anderson corrected. “Get aboard.” He glared around at the landscape which was slowly becoming visible in the grey light of dawn.  
  
“Sir,” Jones ventured. “Captain Alban holds an engineering degree.”  
  
Anderson rounded on Jones, then on Shay, skewering her with a challenging glare. “What _kind_ of engineering degree?” he asked. “And don’t say ‘textile,’ or I will shoot you.”  
  
“Mechanical, sir,” Shay said. “Got my degree in the hope of joining the Terraforming Corps, but then Zoltar turned up and spoiled the party.”  
  
“I hope you’re ready to get your hands dirty, Captain Alban,” Anderson said.  
  
“Yes, sir!”  
  
  
  
The Heavy Airborne Transports were slow but they had Vertical Take Off and Landing capability which proved essential at their destination. Each heavy made a slow hovering approach before descending into a large forest clearing.  
  
The engineers – whose number now included Shay – were herded to one side while the Army grunts erected tents and unloaded the HATs.  
  
In the shade of an ancient conifer, Anderson activated a holographic display which replayed the attack of the enemy ship and the disastrous attempts of the ISO’s combined might to fend it off.  
  
“My God,” one of the Space Patrol engineers, who had identified herself as Flora Okonedo, said, “it’s the five-hundred-pound gorilla in the movie theatre. It sits wherever it wants to.”  
  
“That’s the understatement of the week,” the senior engineer Andrew MacDiarmid said. “I take it your analysts have found some kind of weakness that we can exploit, Doctor Anderson?”  
  
“They have,” Anderson said. “My people have analysed the dynamic fields being employed by that thing and discovered that the force field protecting the ship has a significant electromagnetic component. Furthermore, when our weapons hit the field, it fluctuates enough for our spectrographic scanners to reveal that the hull contains a large amount of ferrous material, doubtless to stabilise the EM field.”  
  
Anderson tapped the surface of his palm unit and the holographic display shifted to show a blueprint.  
  
“Sweet mother of pearl, you’re kidding me!” Shay blurted.  
  
“ _Captain_ Alban,” Anderson said silkily, “you may be absolutely certain that I am so far away from anything approaching ‘kidding’ that the light from such an event would take centuries to reach me.”  
  
“Sorry, sir,” Shay said.  
  
The other engineers were still staring at Anderson’s blueprint.  
  
“She’s got a point, Doctor,” MacDiarmid said. “The design is… it could be interpreted as… um… idiosyncratic.”  
  
“It’s our one chance to bring this ship down, ladies and gentlemen,” Anderson said. “Copies of the design have been transmitted to your palm units and will be deleted once the build is complete. Your assignments have also been transmitted. Please review the information and see me if you have any questions.” His glower made it clear that questions were not going to be encouraged.  
  
Half an hour later, Shay was dividing her time between supervising one group of technicians as they welded steel plate and another as they coiled wire around an iron core.  
  
A minor flutter was set off when another Heavy Airborne Transport arrived with a cement truck, more personnel, cement and what looked like the kind of generators used in terraforming projects.  
  
“Captain Alban!” Anderson’s call had Shay putting down her work and striding down the slope toward where several crews were packing up and moving their work areas to accommodate the new arrivals.  
  
“Sir!”  
  
“Here’s the spec for the pad,” Anderson said, shoving a printout at Shay. “You’re in charge.”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
Shay scanned the printout and let her gaze flicker over the materials being delivered. “Oh, this is gonna be fun,” she predicted darkly.  
  
By sunset, exhausted crews were taking breaks to eat reconstituted meals and rest for an hour or so before resuming work. Shay found Alberta Jones occupying one of several folding chairs outside Anderson’s makeshift command post which had been set up in the hold of the solitary Heavy that remained on site.  
  
“I can’t make head or tail of any of this,” Alberta confessed as she offered Shay a Thermos flask of coffee and a plastic mug. “How’s it going? In little words please.”  
  
Shay held up her left hand with the thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “This far,” Shay said. “He’s _this far_ from putting a lightning rod on the roof and a bunch of Tesla coils in the basement and turning himself into a giant fly!”  
  
Jones merely sipped at her tea. “Honestly, Shay,” she said, gazing out from her folding chair at the surrounding woodland. “Can it really be as bad as all that?”  
  
Shay raised her hands in a gesture of exasperation. “Al, a man in a bad suit is building a giant horseshoe magnet in the middle of a forest. _How bad does it have to get_?”  
  
“Now, now,” Alberta said in a tone that was probably meant to be soothing. “He’s a genius, remember. He’s got a plan.”  
  
“A plan.” Shay accepted the Thermos flask and twisted the lid off. She poured some coffee into the plastic mug and sat down beside Jones before handing the flask back. “Al, you remember that toy Zark gave you to give to Keyop? _That’s_ his plan.”  
  
Jones had majored in information management and was fond of the classics. “History,” she pointed out, “has shown throughout the ages that a well-executed ambush can be extremely effective.”  
  
“This,” Shay pointed out, “is not an ambush. This is a giant magnet.”  
  
“And I have absolute faith in this giant magnet,” Jones said with the conviction of the non-scientist. “You didn’t see the giant burning glass he built to defeat the giant ant.”  
  
“Giant _burning glass_?”  
  
“Yes. It was a great big Archimedes’ Mirror sort of thing for concentrating the Sun’s rays. He stuck it on the front of the _Phoenix_ and G-Force used it to defeat the giant ant from Planet Tramulus.” Jones frowned slightly. “You know, when I say that out loud…”  
  
“Al,” Shay said. “in the two weeks since I started with this squad, I’ve seen the two weirdest things I’ve ever witnessed in my entire life, I’ve learned that the Federation’s best line of defence is a bunch of kids and our protection assignment’s one thunderstorm away from joining the Mad Scientists’ Club. A giant ant and an Archimedes’ burning glass sounds like a walk in the park!”  
  
  
  
The generators rumbled and growled through the night, powering tools and floodlights as the crews laboured on.  
  
“I’ve done everything I can with what I’ve got, Chief,” Shay said, “but there’s a big risk that the anchors won’t hold under the kinds of stresses we could be looking at. There’s a chance the concrete could give and the whole shebang could just tear itself outa the ground and smack the enemy in the face.”  
  
“And if it does,” Anderson reasoned, “with its redundant on-board power cells continuing to generate an electromagnetic field, it could even breach the force field and do some damage. Enough, maybe, to allow G-Force an opening.”  
  
Shay blinked. “I… you mean… like a rock out of a slingshot…”  
  
“Hitting a Philistine in the forehead.” Anderson finished the sentence. “My namesake may have been a shepherd boy, but he knew his enemy’s weakness.”  
  
Shay took a deep breath as Anderson walked away and got back to work with renewed vigour.  
  
  
  
Dawn found engineers and technicians still hard at work. Some had succumbed to fatigue and were resting while others battled on for as long as they could. Shay shook her head to try and clear it, but her vision blurred and doubled.  
  
She attempted once more to position the soldering iron, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her. “You’ll end up soldering your fingers together,” Anderson said. “Go get some rest.”  
  
Yes, sir,” Shay said. “Thank you, sir.” She got up, winced as her muscles protested at the long hours of concentration, and stumbled toward the mess tent.  
  
A short way up the rise she stopped and turned back to consider the team’s work: her quick-set concrete pad with its layers of reinforcement and welded anchors remained an unknown quantity against the might of the alien ship, but the magnet _was_ anchored and it stood pointing skyward, its multiple coils encased in riveted sheets of curved steel.  
  
Both in and on the structure, technical staff were putting everything together, even as Shay herself had been until a few minutes earlier.   
  
Thick cables lay along the ground connecting the magnet to the big generators and the little prefabricated control shack.  
  
Shay trudged up the rise to the mess tent in search of coffee, breakfast and a headache pill or two.  
  
  
  
“Ready for test!” The call was repeated up and down the hillside as Shay attempted another bite of reconstituted powdered scrambled egg. She put her fork down and hurried outside to see staffers hurrying away from the magnet.  
  
Workers formed a little knot around the control hut as Anderson threw the switch.  
  
One of the generators coughed and died.  
  
A scattering of swear words rose into the air like startled birds and the engineers set to work isolating the fault.  
  
“Still got absolute faith?” Shay asked Jones who had walked up to stand beside her.  
  
“I’m working on it,” Jones said.  
  
“It pains me to admit it,” Shay said, “but your faith may be justified. He thinks so far outside the box it could actually work.  I’m going to finish my coffee and then I’m putting my nose back to the grindstone.”  
  
A few faulty circuits were re-wired, a broken cable identified and replaced, and the magnet tested out.  
  
As if in salute, a roar of jets heralded the arrival of the _Phoenix_ , which dipped a wing as she cruised overhead and then headed away, flying a search pattern to draw out the enemy.  
  
The Army grunts took down the tents and packed everything into a HAT along with all non-essential personnel who were being evacuated to the far side of the hill.  
  
Anderson, his security detail and two of the engineers remained on station at the control hut. As both an engineer and a security officer, Shay had a front-row seat inside the hut while Jones and half a dozen security officers remained outside to defend the hut against any incursion.  
  
Zark was feeding both vision and information through to Anderson’s palm unit but the Security Chief kept the holo display switched off in order to keep highly classified G-Force mission data from those who didn’t possess the appropriate clearances.  
  
His face tense, Anderson paced the length of the little hut and back again putting Shay in mind of a big cat who would take the utmost delight in having an unwitting zoo visitor wander into his cage right around supper time.  
  
Anderson stopped pacing, consulted a readout and turned to Shay. “Confirm generators on line and ready for load.”  
  
Shay checked a control panel. “Everything’s in the green, Chief.”  
  
Anderson’s palm unit chimed and he answered the call in private mode, listening for a moment before speaking. “Thanks, Princess.” He terminated the call. “Power,” he ordered.  
  
Two of the technicians threw the large switches that would bring the magnet on line. Shay watched the readouts on the gauges dip with the start-up load and then stabilise.  
  
Everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath.  
  
Shay opened the door of the hut and dared to look outside.  Down the slope, the magnet was shaking on its mountings and in the sky loomed the dark shape of the alien ship.  
  
“Oh. My. God,” Shay said. “It’s working! Chief! It’s working!”  
  
Anderson joined Shay in the doorway. As they watched, the concrete around the magnet’s anchors began to shatter. Shay glanced up at Anderson. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”  
  
“Either way,” Anderson said, “they’ve got a chance.”  
  
“It’s actually reeling that thing in!” Shay whispered. “I don’t believe it!”  
  
“This far from turning myself into a giant fly, huh?” Anderson muttered.  
  
“Oh, _shit_ ,” Shay said.  
  
“Excuse me,” Jones said. “I’m the first person to admit that I’m no scientist, but if that ship should crash here, is there any chance there might be a bit of a ‘kaboom,’ sort of thing?”  
  
“Yes,” Anderson said thoughtfully. “Yes there is.”  
  
“Then may I suggest that moving in the general direction of ‘away’ might be an idea at this point, sir?”  
  
Anderson stepped out of the building and motioned for the rest of the technical staff to follow. The little group hurried to climb over the crest of the hill and began to descend the other side. “Don’t get used to this,” Anderson warned as Jones hurried him along.  
  
They saw the flash of light before the sound hit and the shockwave flattened the trees at the top of the hill.  
  
The ISO personnel all dived for the safety of the forest floor and stayed there for several long moments.  
  
Ears ringing, Shay rolled over and immediately sought out Chief Anderson, who was getting to his feet and brushing leaf litter off his trousers. Jones was standing and shaking her head. Anderson made to head back toward the crash site but Jones caught his arm. “Let the others go first, sir,” she said in a tone that brooked no nonsense.  
  
Shay drew her sidearm and signalled for the other blue-clad security officers to follow her up to the crest of the hill.  
  
Where the magnet had been there was now a crater glowing red hot. Shay moved the security team back below the ridge. “Anyone got a Geiger counter?” she called.  
  
Her palm unit chimed and she answered it. “ _This is 7-Zark-7_ ,” said a voice. “ _I’m scanning the area and I’d like to assure you that radiation levels are normal. The smoke contains toxins, however_.”  
  
“Yeah, thanks,” Shay said and put the unit back in her pocket. “Okay! Chrome-Dome says there’s nothing hard coming out of the crater. Move in! Check for survivors!”  
  
Shay’s progress was impeded by the arrival of the _Phoenix._ The big blue and red warship made a vertical landing and four of the five G-Force members leapt from the dorsal dome to glide down on winged capes to the edge of the crater.  
  
“Spread out,” Shay told her subordinates and they hastened to obey.  
  
The G-Force members pointed upward and Shay looked into the sky to see a lone figure gliding out of the smoke: the G-Force commander, by his colours.  
  
Shay watched the young commander touch down to the welcome of his team. She heard the crunch of boots on leaf litter behind her and turned to see Anderson and Jones. “I trust,” Anderson said, “that my sanity’s no longer in doubt?”  
  
“Mine may well be,” Shay said. “Sorry, sir.”  
  
“I’ll let you know if I ever decide to order those Tesla coils,” Anderson said and started down the hill with Jones half a pace behind him. “I could use a test subject for when I start reanimating the dead.” [1]  
  
“He’s never going to let me live this down is he?” Shay predicted as she followed her Chief of Staff through the pines.  
  
“Oh, give him time,” Jones said. “He’ll get over it. Eventually.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
_fin  
  
_

 

  1. Don’t try this at home.




End file.
